page_title: Severn Bridge Railway
section_title: Sharpness docks
hierarchical_section_title: Severn Bridge Railway / Before the bridge / Sharpness docks
caption_attribution_description: English: Severn Railway Bridge, from near Purton, Near to Sharpness, Gloucestershire, Great Britain. View SW, from beside Gloucester - Chepstow - Severn Tunnel Junction line on right bank of the Severn Estuary, in 1948 - long before the Bridge was closed and dismantled after a large petrol-tanker barge struck one of the central piers on the foggy night of 25/10/60. The Severn &amp; Wye Joint (ex-Great Western &amp; Midland) Berkeley Road - Lydney line was thereby curtailed to the Berkeley Road - Sharpness section and this lost its passenger service on 2/11/64.
context_page_description: The Severn Bridge Railway was a railway company which constructed a railway from Lydney to Sharpness in Gloucestershire, England. It was intended chiefly to give access for minerals in the Forest of Dean to Sharpness Docks, and the company built a long bridge, 1,387 yards in length, over the River Severn. The line opened in 1879.
  On opening the company entered a partnership with the Severn and Wye Railway; the Sharpness branch of the Midland Railway was transferred into the group, the combined network forming the Severn & Wye and Severn Bridge Railway. The Severn Bridge Railway and the former Midland Railway branch formed the "Bridge" section of the S&WJR; the former Severn and Wye Railway formed the "Forest" section.
  The line was never profitable, being dependent on the colliery activity in the Forest of Dean, and the huge construction cost of the bridge meant that there were heavy, and unaffordable, interest charges, and the S&W&SBR Company went into receivership. It was purchased by the Midland Railway and the Great Western Railway jointly, and became known as the Severn and Wye Joint Railway.
context_section_description: The Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, usually known later as the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, was built between 1798 and 1827, to give sea-going ships access to Gloucester. It was the first ship canal in Great Britain. There was a sea lock at Sharpness, on the eastern shore of the Severn. By 1870 the canal was inadequate for the ships of the day, which discharged at Sharpness, and required to bunker. In 1871 work was started on docks at Sharpness, as a convenient place to which larger sea-going shipping could be brought. The Midland Railway was operating the main line between Bristol and Gloucester, and the Midland obtained authorisation for a branch line from Berkeley Road on that line to Sharpness.
caption: The Severn Railway Bridge, from near Purton
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